RaspberryPi/Kodi

[Jimbo213Mo]

I have what I hope to be a simple question / request that will help Newbies like me:
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I just built a RaspberryPi2 piggybacked to the Pi "official" 7-inch display. Used NOOBS to load Raspian-Jesse. Then loaded Kodi 15.2 [current version yesterday].
Connected via Cat-6 to my home network so now I do have the functionality to play music from my NAS drive & listen to streaming Radio from the internet. Very Cool.
I am going to install the Pi+Display in an very old kitchen intercom "base unit" to replace the tube AM/FM radio.
Oh, and I have PLEX on my main network desktop PC to catalog all the NAS audio + video [however NextPVR is NOT in the available channels on PLEX ??].
That does play on my networked ROKU and networked PCs. Really cool.
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My question is: what do I need to do next to be able to watch/listen on my RaspberryPi/Kodi to the local TV station while we make breakfast?
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It would be really nice if the "read this first" document would start with a very high-level "how this technology works" layer-by-layer explanation.
If that could be added then Newbies like myself might not feel so lost.
Thanks, Jim

[psycik]

It'd be pretty difficult to fi do up with a first steps guide. As once nextpvr is installed and running the options are fairly limitless. There's enough just to document the running of nextpvr.

So regarding plex, yes you can get it to run a nextpvr channel. I wrote it, I think there's a link in my sig.

I find it works really well for purely live events on devices. It doesn't schedule recordings or anything like that. Now ever it des play recorded content.

Also just this week I put up a scanner for loading nextpvr recordings as a library type. I also added a metadata agent for reading the associated xml files. But it doesn't completely work for some reason.

So for your kitchen you could try kodi. It'd be interesting to see if it plays your recorded content. Especially the HD (guessing mpeg2).

If you get the plex solution going it will at least transcode. But kodi will give you recording ability, tv guide etc rather than just now information from the nextpvr plex channel.

[martint123]

From reading the top post, I'm not sure if he has NPVR up and running yet??

[dgeezer]

MartinT123, That was my first thought too.

If all you want is live tv on the raspberry pi then I think this might be enough:

An hdhomerun tuner, I use this one HDHR connect

An antenna - assuming that ota broadcast is available at your location. Check at tvfool.com
The hdhomerun addon for kodi https://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/kodi/
The mpeg2 codecs from raspberry pi foundation. This is nescessary for decent playback of US broadcast streams.

I have this running on my pi and it works great. (The Silicondust kickstarter dvr however is almost worthless) I am a member of the Kickstarter but I assume that the plugin works for regular live playback without it.....

This will get live tv running on the pi pretty quickly and easily. Then you'll have time to explore whether or not you want to take the time to set up a full npvr installation. Npvr will get you a ton of advantages over what I've described here but at the cost of a greater investment in time on your part. The good news is that this should all be possible for about $100.00.

[Graham]

My question is: what do I need to do next to be able to watch/listen on my RaspberryPi/Kodi to the local TV station while we make breakfast?

My advice would be to get NextPVR up and running on a single Windows computer before you start fiddling with Plex and Pi. Simply stated, NextPVR is two components. Firstly, a Windows service that runs continuously and is responsible for scheduling recordings. The recording service also provides a web service that can be connected to using NEWA ... http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Manual.NEWA. The second component is the NextPVR front end and this is the program that you would use on your Windows computer for configuration settings and to watch TV and schedule recordings and to watch those recordings.

[Jimbo213Mo]

Senior Members - THANKS so much for your replies. Here are answers to your questions.
[Oh FYI: I do NOT need recording capability, I have that using my CableTV+DVR box on TV in livingroom. I just want to watch/listen to LiveTV on my RasPi2]

@psycik; I was looking for a high-level illustration like THIS to show all the hardware/software components from <cable Modem> to .... to <RaspberryPi RJ45>
I opened "Plex Channel for viewing NextPVR content" and have NO IDEA what to do with that code to make a NextPVR channel on PLEX running on my Win7SP1 PC. Help!

@martint123: Correct - I do not have NPVR up and running yet

@dgeezer: I had already added HDHomeRun to Kodi and I get an error "No Channels found on any device"
Got It! The HDHR connect is the box to bring in non-cable TV broadcast. All my PC stuff is in the basement - probably poor antenna reception.
Is there similar hardware NEEDED to bring in & unscramble the Charter CableTV signal to my PC that runs PLEX?
Also the silicondust link says:
If you have a HDHomeRun PRIME, CONNECT, or EXTEND (HDHR3-CC, HDHR4-2US, and HDTC-2US) you can install and watch TV today…
What's that all mean?

@Graham: I'm not understanding how the CableModem's Ethernet connection to the Win7 PC is sending any TV signals there for NextPVR or PLEX to receive ??
I think that is what dgeezer was saying.

Ok - my time to wait and watch for more good knowledge dump from this forum.
Thanks in advance, Jim

[dgeezer]

"Also the silicondust link says:
If you have a HDHomeRun PRIME, CONNECT, or EXTEND (HDHR3-CC, HDHR4-2US, and HDTC-2US) you can install and watch TV today…
What's that all mean?"

HDHomeRun PRIME: this is for use with a cablecard. Your results would vary based on which channels from Charter are transmitted "copy freely" and which ones are "copy once". You would only be able to play back the copy freely channels on the Pi using Kodi. In my case that's only the locals and a few public service channels. My OTA channels seem to be clearer so I stick with that.

CONNECT: This is for clear qam from your cable co. or over the air. With more and more cable companies encrypting everyting clear qam is quickly becomong obsolete leaving this to work mostly with OTA.

EXTEND: Same as connect except it offers transcoding for devices that don't have good playback of mpeg2. The Rasp. Pi has good playback of mpeg2 if you buy the codec for hardware decoding from the Pi foundation.

The advantage of the hdhomerun is that it's network tuner hardware. The box can be located anywhere on your network. They do only work wired. Mine is located in the attic with the antenna.

BTW, you will have to download the HDhomerun software to set up the tuners. This will need to scan for channels. The easiest way to do this is on a windows pc. Once you get a tuner up and running you should be able to just open the kodi hdhomerun addon and it will find all the channels that you scanned for on the windows pc. We use this app for our live tv (well my wife does, I don't watch anything live) because it's quick and simple.

I would get a tuner set up first. Then install npvr on a windows pc and give it a whirl. You might find yourself kicking that cable co. dvr to the curb and saving yourself 15 to 20 bucks a month....

[snagglewest]

So here's my setup, a bit different than most here probably but it works well for me:

* NextPVR is installed on a headless server and is used as a back end only
* HDHomerun Prime with cablecard for tuners
* a re-purposed laptop runs Kodi which is the main box all the clients connect to using UPnP.
* five Raspberry Pi2 with OSMC (a stand alone Kodi install), one on each TV in the house with the exception of the living room TV
I should mention that the Raspberry Pi's are all 5mhz wireless and I have zero buffering problems in a 2800sqft single level house.

The basic process is this:
Cable TV comes into the house directly into the HDHomerun and provides the cable TV channels for NextPVR which either records programs to the HD or serves up live TV to the Kodi boxes via the NextPVR addon in Kodi.

It's simple, effective and easy to use and most importantly wife-friendly. All the Kodi boxes are set up exactly alike so the UI is the same throughout the house. Don't know how married you are to plex but I'm not a fan. I'm all for keeping it simple, one interface and everything is local. No need to make it more complex than needed when Kodi has addons for just about everything under the sun.

Snag

[elsmandino]

Hello Snag,

I have just come accross this old post and was intrigued by your setup.

* a re-purposed laptop runs Kodi which is the main box all the clients connect to using UPnP.

Snag

What is the benefit of connecting all the Raspberry Pis this way?

[snagglewest]

The main kodi box is a "media server" so to speak which pushes out the shared library to the clients via UPnP. There's a couple of up sides, first it's easy to share your libraries (video, music etc) as you don't have to set up the libraries multiple times (on each client) which saves a ton of work. Secondly all the clients reflect what's watched/unwatched and if a recording was stopped in them middle you can go to another client and lick back up where you left off. You can do the same with MySQL too but it's a lot more work for no gain IMO. It's what works for me, YMMV.

For me it's great. When i kick the kids out of the living room where they're watching "finding nemo" for the 1,000th time they can go to their bedroom and pick right up where they left off with no fuss.